If you haven’t yet purchased your copy of Mike Adams At His Honest Weight’s Preparation Age LP, there are still copies available for order at the btv online store or available at your local indie record store. If you have gotten a copy or seen some photos of Chad Serhal’s very excellent etching, you may want to know more about it all. Mike made a short post and Mike and Chad have finished a video documenting the process.

The pinball-machine design was created and etched by my friend Chad Serhal. The vinyl manufacturing plant sent a blank lacquer to Chad, who carved the design into the lacquer using some exacto knives and other sharp tools. After that, the lacquer was plated with nickel and a stamper was made. From there, the stamper was used to press the design into each copy of the vinyl record.

This was Chad’s first ever lacquer/vinyl etching (though I’ve seen him do some pretty outstanding wood carvings before). He lamented to me that there were no instructional or how-to videos online about vinyl etching (it’s mostly done by lasers these days, not people’s hands). So, Chad and I made this video to put online in case some other luddites ever need to stumble upon it for reference in the future.

In the summer of 2014, I met 11 of the touring members of Greensboro, NC’s The Collection after helping them find a show in Philadelphia. We’ve been talking about putting their album out on vinyl ever since.

The Collection’s Ars Moriendi has a wide range of influences ranging from the orchestral folk of Sufjan Stevens to the punk energy of mewithoutYou to the collective melody of The Polyphonic Spree.

Ars Moriendi is presented on 150g random marbled vinyl in a thick tip-on gatefold jacket with a lyric insert that includes new artwork. The D side has two album outtakes and a cover of Postal Service’s “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.” It’s available for pre-order now here and will ship in January 2016 when the final printed parts arrive.